Saturday, December 6, 2014

Face it: Boys Can’t Do Words

Courtesy of Devin Pope and Justin Sydnor in the Spring 2010 Journal of Economic Perspectives, via Timothy Taylor, we have this graphic that shows, along the horizontal axis, the ratio of girls to boys in the top 5% of the NAEP reading test:

This proves what many of us have suspected all along: boys are genetically inferior when it comes to reading, at least careful reading. Their brains are not wired for words. So stop trying to make excuses for things like guys failing to understand mortgage contracts or IPCC reports on climate science. This is not a social failing; it’s because of evolutionary inheritance. Back in the cave age, males who got absorbed in reading were eaten by sabretooths or something. Pretending that biological differences don’t exist is just Political Correctness, and we know how horrible that is.

7 comments:

You are so right (or should that be so left? hard to know what counts as a compliment in these troubled times). This explains why there were historically so few male authors. Homer? The guy couldn’t even write his own stuff down - a clear example of the male inability to do words.

I dunno how to say this but sure seems that, unless you are a woman with an extremely unusual first name, dis here post sure seems to be evidence against its conclusion, since it shows that you do words real good.

You know the purpose of the graph is to demonstrate that environmental (in this case geographic) factors affect academic performance. If performance was driven mainly by genetics, then there wouldn't be as much variation by geography. It's meant to demonstrate how differing social forces affect performance. You write, "This proves what many of us have suspected all along: boys are genetically inferior when it comes to reading, at least careful reading." This is actually the exact opposite of what the graph is saying...

As I read the graph, there is a minimum of a 2:1 advantage for girls in reaching the top 5% in reading tests (which may or may not correlate strongly with reading ability). This completely swamps the geographical variation. Looks plausibly genetic with a second order cultural or social component to me. Further variation due to differing testing methods also likely unless these are all the same standardised tests.